“Happy Africans”

February 6, 2014

3/29/13, Gun Owners of America Main Office, Springfield, Virginia.
Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America a anti gun regulation lobbying group who also offers a membership service to gun owners.
CREDIT: Christopher Gregory/The New York Times

It’s unclear how big the Gun Owners of America are (the NRA predominates in the numbers and in terms of influence), but it’s important enough that the organization’s lobbyists write bills for congressmen, calling for no gun control, and these usually get passed in the US House of Representatives. We’re also not all that surprised when GOA leaders say dumb things, but there are times when we’re left speechless. Take these latest random comments by the group’s executive director, Larry Pratt (that’s him in the pic above taking aim), on a radio broadcast. The show, “Gun Owner’s News Hour,” was discussing the “differences” between Africans and African-Americans, the passing of Nelson Mandela, South African Apartheid, and how George Zimmerman is being persecuted in a way comparable to Apartheid South Africa. The show’s host is Selwyn Duke.

But here’s the gist in summary form. First, The Rawstory with those comments about “Africans from Africa”:

“… Generally the African from Africa is a very pro-American person, a very happy person,” Pratt opined. “I know several. And they are always just happy with a joke, pleasant smile on their face. And they clearly don’t identify with the surliness that’s all too frequently the attitude of their fellow African-Americans here.”

“And they’re very conservative politically,” he continued. “The country of Ghana, it’s still illegal to commit an abortion, it’s illegal to be a homosexual. Very conservative social laws and very free market oriented as well.”

Duke agreed and pointed out that the types of Africans that could afford to come to the U.S. were of “a better stripe.”

“They tend to be educated, they tend to be a little more upper class than a lot of the Africans who can’t get here,” Duke said.

“It’s the way we used to run our immigration system altogether,” Pratt replied. “These are folks that stand apart and hopefully they can approach some of their fellow blacks and say, ‘Hey, buddy, you got this all wrong, let me explain to you how the world really works.’”

They also discussed Apartheid South Africa (this summary from Right Wing Watch):

The two also touched on the issue of apartheid in South Africa, which both claimed wasn’t all that bad. Pratt lamented that Dutch and English settlers “neglected to evangelize the blacks,” so that now “there aren’t common values, there is certainly no Christian ethos in that country.”

Duke, for his part, equated the “supposedly racist” apartheid regime with George Zimmerman. “South Africa was sort of the George Zimmerman of the geopolitical stage,” he said. “It was a situation where you had black on black crimes that were rampant and brutal that the media ignored, but this white-on-black so-called crime was disseminated far and wide … simply because it accorded with the politically correct agenda.”

Yet another lazy post about stupid white people. Really guys move on….. The only possible reason to pay attention to these people is as a lame and cheap way to feel (unjustifiably) better about yourself.

If every time I wanted a laugh I went out into the village next to my house to talk to the vast majority of people here in rural Malawi who believe some really silly things about the West I would be rightly condemned as petty, possibly racist, and just plain dumb. And the worst thing is that doing so wouldn’t even be funny. Nor are the opinions of the GOA. They are sad. Ignore them, or earnestly try to change them. Laughing at them is a stupid joke and its on you.